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Direct laser writing is shown to dramatically enhance the chemical etch rate of laser crystals yttrium aluminium garnet and sapphire, allowing nanostructuring.
A device capable of inverting the polarization of light by efficient control of interlayer excitons in a van der Waals heterostructure is demonstrated, representing an important step towards implementing logic operations in valleytronics.
An interferometric homodyne method is employed to measure material-dependent intensity-induced phase shifts of extreme-ultraviolet high harmonics emerging from bulk magnesium oxide and quartz crystals, providing a robust platform for high-harmonic spectroscopy of solids.
Characterizing not only the fluorescence intensity but also the inherent quantum correlations of the fluorescent photon stream can enhance the spatial resolution of image scanning microscopy up to twofold, a fourfold improvement over the diffraction limit.
A microphotonic astrocomb is demonstrated via temporal dissipative Kerr solitons in photonic-chip-based silicon nitride microresonators with a precision of 25 cm s–1 (radial velocity equivalent), useful for Earth-like planet detection and cosmological research.
A soliton microcomb as an astronomical spectrograph calibrator is presented. It can ultimately have a footprint of a few cubic centimetres, and reduced weight and power consumption, attractive for precision radial velocity measurement.
Coupled lithium niobate ring resonators enable control of a ‘photonic molecule’ by programmed microwave signals. An on-demand optical storage and retrieval system is demonstrated.
A terawatt picosecond CO2 laser beam is shown to form a centimetre-scale-diameter filament in air that is capable of carrying several joules of energy.
Quantum cascade laser frequency combs are coherently locked to an external radio-frequency source even in extremely high-feedback conditions. The internal phase-locking mechanism and the possibility of all-electric stabilization are investigated.
Brillouin lasing with 0.7 Hz fundamental linewidth is observed by optically exciting a monolithic bus–ring Si3N4 waveguide resonator. The Brillouin laser is applied to an optical gyroscope and a low phase-noise photonic microwave oscillator.
Simultaneous spin and orbital angular momentum conservation enables control over the divergence and polarization of EUV vortex beams, paving the way to ultrafast studies of chiral systems using high-harmonic beams with designer spin and orbital angular momentum.
Five wire lasers are phase-locked by a strong coupling and form a coupled cavity. The lasing frequency is around 3.8 THz and is continuously tunable by 10 GHz. A continuous-wave output power of 50–90 mW and beam divergence of ∼10° are achieved.
The absolute phase difference of the harmonic emission of Ar, Ne and He atoms is measured by XUV interferometry with temporal resolution of 6 as. This measurement provides a direct insight into the quantum properties of the photoelectron wavefunctions.
A second harmonic with a conversion efficiency of 0.049% W−1, originating from surface nonlinearity and bulk multipole response in a silica whispering-gallery microcavity, is observed with a continuous-wave pump power below 1 mW.
A broadband-light storage technique using the Autler–Townes effect is demonstrated in a system of cold Rb atoms. It overcomes both inherent and technical limitations of the established schemes for high-speed and long-lived optical quantum memories.
A quantum walker on a hexagonal glued array of optical waveguides is made inside a glass substrate. The optimal hitting time increases linearly with the layer depth, giving a quadratic speed-up over the hitting performance by classical random walks.
Self-organization far from thermal equilibrium in a thermo-optical feedback process occurring in a random array of Fabry–Pérot resonators is shown, adding new capability to dynamic self-assembly in creating materials with fine-tuned adaptive responses.
A direct wireless-to-optical receiver in a transparent optical link is achieved, thanks to a subwavelength two-dimensionally localized gap-plasmon mixer encoding wireless information directly onto optical signals.
A three-dimensionally entangled Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger state, where all three photons reside in a qutrit space, is generated by developing a new multi-port in combination with a novel four-photon source entangled in orbital angular momentum.
